My husband pointed out to me - this is what started MJ's weird behavior - we wondered if it scarred more than his head if you know what I mean...

I don't remember this either but holy crap, that looked painful.

They were pretty successful at keeping how truly serious this was under wraps at the time. I remember this incident very well and all we ever saw was the bandaged Michael (with his glove still on) waving from the ambulance and a blurry picture of him coming down the stairs from the front with his hair on fire, but they had made it sound like he was just singed a little. Never did we know that it burned off most of his hair! (And you can see how embarrassed he is when he realizes that he's got a giant bald spot!) Just sad.

love, J-Mo :)

I was just a baby when this happened... how terrible! I didn't know how bad it was. Poor Michael. I'm sure seeing himself so badly burned didn't help his dysmorphophobia and just lead to more and more surgery.

I was old enough to be a full-fledged-i-wanna-marry-michael-jackson-when-i-grow-up fan at this time (but still a kid) and remember being angry at Pepsi for burning my husband-to-be.
Although, like J-Mo said, they did a good job of covering it up. I don't think anyone knew how bad it was except the ones who were there that day. I still don't drink Pepsi.

Yowzaa! That looks terrible! I remember hearing about it too and it didn't sound nearly as horrific as it looked!
My co-workers said he was bald from the burns when he died.

Yeah, I agree, that's enough to push someone who's already got self-image problems over the edge!

Yep, J-Mo's right, they definitely played it down at the time -- like it just singed a bit of his hair, no big deal. Was a great source of jokes for a few weeks there. It definitely makes sense that it screwed with his mind-- you can see in the video that his hair/skin was burned down to the scalp.

For me, at the time, the most significant part was that this was one of the first times that a major brand attempted to buy its image by linking up with a major star. It started the whole slippery slope that has made product placement and corporate sports arenas seem normal.

It's one of the reasons why I've always held (post-Thriller) MJ in such contempt. But I suppose that's what the 80s were all about anyway.